Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness

June 24, 2020

Using Influenza Surveillance Networks to Estimate State-Specific Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in the United States

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  • Silverman et. al use outpatient surveillance data for influenza-like illness to estimate the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in the US. Assuming that one third of all people infected with SARS-CoV-2 sought care, the authors estimated that a surge of influenza-like illness corresponded to over 8.7 million new SARS-CoV-2 infections across the US between March 8-28, 2020, which is substantially more than the number of infections that were detected. The authors also estimated that the early US epidemic doubled in size at least every 4 days, and that over 80% of cases were undetected. 

Silverman et al. (June 22, 2020). Using Influenza Surveillance Networks to Estimate State-Specific Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in the United States. Science Translational Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.abc1126